I am a prisoner. An endless barrage of expectations and responsibilities pummel everything in an 8 mile radius around me. Every ounce of energy in my body is expended fighting for survival. It can’t end now; I have too much to live for. After all, is the fear of death not what keeps all of us going?

The salvo comes to a ceasefire. When the dust settles, the hopelessness of my situation becomes evident. Enclosing me on all sides is a colossal and impenetrable wall. It is difficult to describe the nature of this wall from the inside, where I am confined. What I know is this: The wall is not made of brick, concrete, or wire, for it is made of the strongest substance in existence. What is this substance, you ask? Take the strongest object you can think of, and combine it not just with every other object you thought of before that, but every single thought you have ever had before that. You see, this is the prison I am in: a prison of thoughts.

Its walls are made of relationships that must be maintained, reputation that must be earned and preserved, and social norms that must be obeyed, all tied together by the invisible glue of subconscious beliefs. None of you know what it’s like inside these walls. Yet, I suspect, you are all prisoners too. In some prisons, the dust has not yet settled, and its prisoners are unaware of the nature of their captivity. Yes, I am sure of it. We are all enslaved and we are all suffering.

I speculate that some prisons are nicer than others, and I often try to imagine what other people’s prisons are like. Even though I know my imaginations must be wildly inaccurate, when I think someone has a nicer prison than mine, I am filled with envy and frustration. And when I think they have a worse one, I am filled with sympathy and gratitude.

I like the feeling of gratitude. It helps ease the pain of my suffering, and it is a drug I have been taking increasingly often. It starts with material possessions. I am writing this on a $3,000 computer connected to a $600 monitor with a $1,000 phone next to me. I may not have Jordans or a Rolex, but I have so much already. I am also inhabiting a healthy body capable of fully experiencing life. Then, I think of all the beautiful people I have in my life, and how fortunate I am that of the 8 billion humans on Earth, I was able to meet them. And finally, there is life itself. How cool is consciousness? How amazing is it to wake up knowing we live in a crazily spontaneous world where each day is different from the last? Boy oh boy, how lucky I am to be alive…

The walls are still here. I am still a prisoner, constrained and bombarded by my thoughts. I lied to you earlier when I described these walls as impenetrable. There is one way out and I have been thinking about it more frequently. Escape from this prison puts an end to the suffering. The barrage of burdens being hurled at me would stop once and for all. The ramifications of an escape are tremendous, but I won’t be around to face any of them. Cowardly fleeing the slings and arrows of life, but bravely venturing into the unknown… It doesn’t sound all too bad. But irreversible decisions like this one must not be made so rashly. I must think about it some more.

Who built these walls in the first place? Surely I was not born into them. If it is true that we are the product of our environment, then we are born as blank slates. These slates are vandalised in our upbringing by the words and actions of the people around us, and eventually materialise into our beliefs. Beliefs dictate our thoughts, thoughts dictate our actions, and our actions vandalise the slates of others in an endless cycle.​​ Thus the architects of my prison are not just the people around me, but also the people around them, and so on. Society is incarcerating us all!

We have all been fated to imprisonment from the beginning with no judge, jury, or due process. But in this light, would putting an end to my suffering not increase the suffering of the prisoners around me? I would be a selfish coward.

Fine. Then I will keep living out of spite. Fling as many shitty things as you can at me. Let’s see if I flinch. Let’s see who breaks first. I'm not a coward.

Fuck me. What kind of existence is that? Stoically inviting disaster with open arms, just to show that I can handle it? What if I can’t? What good comes from it even if I can? What a pitiful reason to live this is. There must be more to life. What am I missing?

Perhaps life itself has some incentives that make it worth living. “Matthew, life has no meaning, you have to find meaning in it yourself!” Let’s start there. After all, as cruel as the captivity I am subject to is, my prison is also capable of satisfying all my desires. I can travel the world, eat good food, and meet interesting people. In fact, right now, I think there is nothing in the world I want more than this—

SHUT UP! I won’t fall for that farce again. Time and time again, I have told myself, “it would be so nice if I could achieve X. If I could just have X, then I’ll be happy.” Sometimes, X came easily, or rather, luckily. Other things required me to put my life on pause and my heart and soul on the line before prevailing in the end. But regardless of the magnitude of the achievement, the level of sacrifices made, or the pleasurableness of the initial dopamine rush, I always end up just as miserable as before, no matter how many times I overdose on gratitude.

An earsplitting explosion interrupts my thoughts. The barrage is beginning again. Society has reloaded its guns and is ready to unleash a new round of expectations and responsibilities. The ground beneath me rumbles and I am consumed by a thick haze. I can’t see the wall anymore. Is it still there? Doesn’t matter, I have more pressing matters to deal with now. My mind is clearer and more alert. As I put one foot in front of the other, my only concern is my immediate surroundings. Maybe one day the dust will settle and the walls will be gone, irrational as that might be.

May 19th Update: I hope you found this rather experimental blog post somewhat interesting. I was going to post one more thing before my co-op started, but didn't get around to it. Anyways, since I did a mini-photo dump on the blog post I made at the end of last term, why not make it a tradition!

High school friends from U of T and uOttawa came to visit on their reading week.

Campus closed due to a snowstorm, so our calculus quiz that night was cancelled. Sadly, drawing the fundamental theorem of calculus on a wall with snow did not result in bonus marks. The ensuing snowball fight was a blast though.

The smartest and strongest bipedal species, apex of the animal kingdom, next to some dude.

I joined the hEDGE Financial Services Conference team in September 2022. This April, we hosted a conference in downtown Toronto with 100+ delegates and 40+ corporate representatives. Thanks for an awesome year, team!